My Daughter Sent Me A Vitamix!

Except for when I had my old Vitamix, I have always just had cheap blenders, too, often ones that came from the thrift store and were pretty worn out before I even bought them. My mom had an old blender that she probably bought back in the 1940's, and when I was growing up, she used to blend up carrots and pineapple juice in that. This was my favorite treat, so naturally, I always had some kind of a blender so that I could make this for my kids once I grew up and got married.
I think that unless a person is making something like a green smoothie, you actually can make most things in any cheap blender. Green leaves and grasses have a hard cell wall, and they can't be processed by our digestive system until those cell walls are broken down. That is why most blenders will leave little chunks when you add greens to the blender.
Bobby doesn't drink green smoothies , and he only makes his protein shakes each morning; so any blender will work for him, too, @Holly Saunders .
I liken choosing a blender to choosing a vehicle.
If you only need to drive to work or to the grocery store, most any running vehicle will work; but if you are a rancher that needs to be able to haul a couple tons of hay out to the barn, then you really need a heavy-duty truck. So, it just depends on what you need it to be able to do.
Last night, I blended up fresh shredded coconut and made delicious coconut milk. It is so rich and creamy, and nothing like the watery coconut or almond milk that you can buy at the store. Coconut is another one of those things that is hard to get really smooth unless you have a powerful blender.

 

Yesterday, we made our monthly trip to Sam's Club. I got a bag of fresh almonds and wanted to try making real almond milk. I have read that it is a lot richer and creamier than the kind you buy in the store, plus the fresh milk has no added chemicals like they use to stabilize the commercial nut milks.
I have made coconut milk before, and it turned out okay, but the coconut oil settles at the top when you refrigerate it. I think that they use dried coconut meat that the oil has been taken out of when they make commercial coconut milk.
Anyway, back to my story.....
Last night I set out a cup of the fresh almonds to soak and maybe even germinate a little, which activates all of the vitamins and other nutrients in the almonds. This morning, I rinsed and drained them (the water turns brown from the almond skins), and then followed the directions for almond milk that came with the Vitamix.
It turned out a creamy white color, and has a lot richer taste than that watery stuff I was getting at the store. I added a little sweetener, a little vanilla flavoring, and some cinnamon and blended it all again. I am going to use this in my coffee and tea instead of regular milk or cream.
Once I added the vanilla and cinnamon, it turned a little darker color, more like coffee with a lot of milk or cream in it. I didn't strain it because then you lose all of the fiber, which is an important part of my diet.
The Vitamix blends it so well that there is not much that would need to be strained out , in any case. No little lumps or bits of almonds, just a smooth creamy milk. With one cup of the almonds and water, I ended up with about a quart of the almond milk; so even the cost should be cheaper than buying it at Kroger.

 

I just looked up commercial almond milk, and in almost all of the brands there are all kinds of additives, many that do not sound good to me at all. Here is an article that goes through the main brands of almond milk, and tells what all is in them. Apparently a lot of these commercial almond milks have only 2% of almonds in them ! !
So , they are only giving it enough almonds to make it white and be able to call it almond milk, even though it is mainly water, thickener, sugar, and chemicals.

https://healthyeater.com/almond-milk

 

Every day I have been making a fresh lemon juice drink in the vitamix. I take a fresh lemon, and sometimes also a lime, peel off the outer skin with a knife, leaving as much of the white (bioflavonoids) on the lemon as possible, then I quarter it and put it in the Vitamix. Next, I add whatever kind of fruit we have that strikes my fancy, and usually a piece of fresh ginger.
Yesterday, I added pineapple to get the extra bromeline because my back was hurting from being in the hospital. Today, I added peaches and sweetened it with a little bit of crystal lite mango flavor. It is SO delicious, and such a healthy drink, too !
I love making the fresh lemonade with the blender, and the Vitamix blends it so well that it is just smooth and creamy to drink over ice.

 

Last week, I went to make my almond milk, and the Vitamix would not start. The little blue light came on, but the push button that activated the motor would not work at all.
After some experimentation (and help from Mr. Bobby) , we discovered that it would run with the pulse option, but had no speed control. It also pulsed at various speeds when it was running.
I was able to make my almond milk, but it was not as smooth as when I make it with the regular power motor.

I wrote to the Vitamix company, they wrote back and asked for serial number, and purchase information, so I sent that back to them, along with a description of what it was doing.
I just got an email back today, and they are sending me a shipping label for UPS, so all I have to do is box the base part up and send it back to them and they will repair it . It is still under warranty , so the repair and shipping are all free, and they said I should get it back within 2 weeks once I send it in for repair.

 

I think that you are probably right about the older machines, @Don Alaska , and they had a lifetime warranty, where the new ones have only a 5-7 year warranty.
It is interesting what you say about the Kitchenaid blender. I bought one at an estate sale along with the matching food processor, and I didn’t like the Kitchenaid machine at all. No matter what I did, it always had chunks of fruit or veggie that had somehow escaped being blended, even when it was softer fruit, like strawberries. The motor had plenty of power, and it seemed to be working fine, it just didn’t blend well.
Bobby got me a Ninja, and it has all of those swirly blades going up the shaft of the blender, but that still left pieces that were unblended also.
With the Vitamix, I have never had that problem, but now that I have seen that even the Vitamix leaves tiny pulp (when making the almond milk) that it didn’t do when I could use the variable speed control, I think that this might have a lot to do with how well something blends.
My daughter-in-law has one of the old stainless steel Vitamix blenders that belonged to her grandmother, and it still works fine, although I don’t think that she uses it very often.
China sells counterfeit “clones” of a Vitamix, and those are much cheaper than a real Vitamix. They can purchase all of the parts that Vitamix uses, and assemble the blender, and since they have assembled it themselves and call it something else, it is legal to do that.